Should my URLs with or without a slash? And how to avoid multiple redirects?

[jessential]

Moz, I am noticing that I need to go back and update my outbound links to your site. There are a lot of them because your content is so great and we love you guys.

Could you explain your logic for making the change?

Example on my Schema Markup Website Audits page:

https://moz.com/blog/state-of-searcher-behavior-revealed/ redirected to: https://moz.com/blog/state-of-searcher-behavior-revealed

[jocameron]

Hi Jeannie,

Thanks for reaching out, and thanks for the love!

I'm sorry to say I don't have any information on why this change was made.

As you probably know, in general this redirect behaviour on our site is in place to avoid duplicate URLs. You can read more about this here https://moz.com/community/q/301-redirect-adding-trailing-slash-to-url.

In terms of the link from your site, as we have a 301 the traffic and equity are being passed to the final location.

It may not be worth your time updating all your existing links, I would suggest focusing on new links moving forward :]

I hope this helps, please do let me know if you would like more clarification or have any other queries.

[jessential]

Hi Jo Cameron,

I appreciate your response. Being the SEO / SEM guru that MOZ is, one anticipates that there is a well-thought reason behind any/all URL changes.  Likely it is still so and may be shared in time by someone who knows the "why". URLs are truly the lifeblood of a site. While many have come to "pile up" on 301's, Google's John Mueller has urged webmasters to keep them at a minimum, which I am sure is not news to you.

We dedicate some time weekly to update URLs such as outbound links where the other site has migrated to HTTPS from HTTP, which is happening a lot right now. It can feel like a wild ride with some sites as they as flip, too frequently IMHO, from www to non-www, and then switch up slugs, and/or using the "/" or not at the end. We sure "get" why we all strive to make improvements and always value the learning curve. Often when it is too exhaustive, we just drop providing a backlink to them (not Moz:)).

Thanks for the great article lead, I had previously read it several times and gained by reading it afresh. But again, we are trying to NOT rely so heavily on 301s.

You are right, it isn't our top priority, either.

Thank you, Jeannie